Take Care
by Overworkedunderwhelmed
Summary: A mother reminisces about the young man she is about to send off to Shield Academy. A son steels himself to take risks. A young woman prepares to tackle a challenge for which no one as young as she has achieved. Very soon the kindred spirits will cross paths, but not before they are at cross purposes.
1. Chapter 1

Mary Fitz worked as an librarian at the local University. She had met her husband there some decades past, and the place had wormed its way into her heart and she couldn't quite bring herself to leave.

She loved watching the students over the years grow into their own, familiar faces who would skulk about the corridors from fall to spring, only to emerge from the collegiate cocoon more confident and capable-and ready to celebrate the freedom of summer.

When the time had come that she was blessed with her own son, she thrilled at the joy of watching him grow. Little hands and little toes learning and making and doing. It was sheer joy when he started talking a bit early, even if he was a bit smaller than the other boys his age.

When he started to pick up on concepts more quickly than the other children, the joy gave way to fear. Fear that she couldn't help him as much as she'd so desperately wanted, especially once his father had passed away. He absorbed school lessons like a sponge, moving leaps and bounds ahead of his classmates-and then their upper classmates and so on, until he had moved into high school before he was even a pre-teen.

He was so far advanced academically, but he was still that same little boy in all other respects. The teachers' handled him with kid gloves and made special accommodations, but it was only inevitable that he'd have to deal with the resentment and jealousy of his classmates. It only hurt more to realize that any help she might provide would only open him up to further ridicule.

She had taught him kindness as a child. She had to teach how to build up walls to protect himself. She had long since come to terms with the fact that she couldn't very well follow him everywhere, so it was up to him to figure out how to best weather the loneliness.

He survived-thrived, really-by applying himself all the more diligently to his studies. He was off to college, when his hormones were just starting to settle into the mix. He graduated Summa Cum Laude while kids his age were preparing for High School Freshman orientation, and didn't even have the exposure to understand what those words meant.

Her child's brilliant mind was equal parts blessing and curse.

Many of her days were hard. But the hardest came when her then sixteen year old son was headed off to parts undisclosed for "one of the best funded research institutions," or so the myriad of brochures had assured them both when she signed on the parent consent forms. It would be a tremendous boon to his career, and he would be tremendously successful.

But lonely.

"Leo," she murmured as she folded him into her arms, still unfailingly amazed at the burden he carried on his slim shoulders. She couldn't cry. It would only make him worry. "You'll be careful."

He leaned his head against hers, hugging her a bit tighter. "I always am, Mum."

She smiled, slipping fingers across her cheeks to dry the tears before he could see them. Her fingers ruffled through his curls. "That's my boy."

His arms started to slide away, as he stooped to pick up his bag. Straightening to full height, she stood beside the car, intent to watch him get checked in until he disappeared into the maze of the airport.

He turned his head over his shoulder, waving to her with a rare smile.

She mimicked his actions before folding her arms across her chest, desperate to hide away her heavy breath. She already worried for him. Was it too much to hope that he find fast friends within the agency? It was enough that she was lonely without him. It wouldn't do for him to live life as lonely as he had been during his school years.

She could only hope for his sake that loneliness had passed.


	2. Chapter 2

Fitz sat in his window seat looking out onto the tarmac. There was a certain element of risk inherent in every flight, and everything became a simple matter of a cost-benefit analysis. Planes were safer than cars statistically, but cars were more mundane. People used them every day and usually gave no thought to the risk.

However, flight travel tended to be unusual. Take offs and landings could raise some anxieties. Turbulence was both literally and figuratively jarring to the unprepared.

His mother always told him to "be careful." Only, this time he wasn't 100% certain she was speaking of the plane trip.

She had been afraid for him, for about as long as he could remember. He jumped past his classmates academically, over and over again. But his interactions with them were limited as best. He only needed to hear a concept explained once to grapple with the meaning.

People were not nearly so easy to grapple with. He understood so long ago, possibly even the first time he had skipped a grade that his older classmates could be quite cruel. Even his neighborhood friends had grown not quite so friendly as soon as he had become different from them. His mother had explained, at length, the concept of jealousy.

He understood it. But he didn't have to like it. There was almost no cause for it, really. Every academic advancement put him even further away from peers his own age. Teachers tried to shelter him somewhat, but that only served to ostracize him further.

He had gotten into trouble once in one of those earliest years. One of his neighborhood friends coerced him into pulling a prank and then left him alone to take the fall. There was no denying his early creative genius in the work, although it was far more function and not enough emphasis on the form.

Unfortunately, it left him with the stark realization that friends were a luxury he couldn't afford. He could be polite to a fault, but he was only resented all the more.

Life took a much more pleasant turn once he had gotten to college. His professors were all too pleased to impart their knowledge and his earliest semesters were heavily loaded with courses. But he couldn't do his coursework without going to the library and seeing study groups and the occasional couple. It was a bit more taxing on his rapidly escalating hormones, but it was otherwise a comfort. His dealings with others were far less adversarial and more competitive. He enjoyed it, thrived on it, really.

He tried to assure himself that rest of it would come, probably when he was no longer a decade or more younger than his classmates.

Midway through his PhD program, he was approached by a SHIELD recruiter. They droned on about the perks of being inside a well-funded agency and the technologically up to date facilities. They gushed about helping to save the world, using his brilliance for good. Nearly all of the hassles of research handled (or at least ameliorated) administratively. The opportunity to learn from professors that universities couldn't even hope to retain. It all was highly complimentary, and all positives in his book. But it was not what sold the program to him.

The program would include students as young as he was. All of the joys he had seen at the collegiate level, including the potential to have friends that didn't resent him. Perhaps he'd even meet a girl who might be interested in him.

He could not possibly have been more on board, but it would take some doing to convince his Mum. He was, after all, still only 15 at the time.

Within a few months time, he had defended and published his dissertation and had returned home for a short trip after graduation. It was lovely to see his Mum. But seeing his old neighborhood only brought the whole wave of memories back: all the fears and loneliness of the boy that he had been. How from time to time he fleetingly wished he could just be "normal" like all of the other kids.

He could only stop himself short, and remind himself that he would be creating a new normal. That the young men and women he would meet would have followed similar paths, succeeding in spite of the burdens.

But it was risky. Riskier than slight anxiety the occasional plane ride always made him feel. The whole exercise was a leap of faith that hinged on the veracity of one recruiter. The SHIELD Academy was an escalator to a life-long career. The classmates he met here would be with him throughout his career as contacts. Making a good first impression would be essential. Just being polite wouldn't do.

And yet, his social skills were grossly atrophied. What if he put his foot in his mouth and offended someone who he'd need to beg help from later?

When they parted at the gate, he could only smile back at her and shoulder his burdens himself. His mother had already done so much to get him this far. He couldn't let her know how much he was worried. Not when he was leaving her all alone again.

Fitz had planned to sleep on the plane, but his anxiety wouldn't allow him even a wink. Dragging his hand over his face, he opted instead to channel that nervous energy on starting into his required course reading. He might as well use the time wisely.


End file.
